


I wanna be your forever

by somewhereelse



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 00:51:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12806010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhereelse/pseuds/somewhereelse
Summary: AU. After ten years without contact, high school sweethearts Oliver and Felicity find reconnecting easier done than said. Isn’t that how the saying goes?





	I wanna be your forever

**Author's Note:**

> I was reminded that my friend’s love life is both the storyline of an actual country song (title from LANco’s Greatest Love Story) and a romance novel trope.
> 
> What does a space turkey say?

 

Oliver’s distracted with shooting his sister’s boyfriend death glares while entering the restaurant’s private room. It’s the only reason he doesn’t notice a certain woman walking through the opposite door at the same time that he takes a seat next to John. The moment he does though, she notices him, too. 

They both freeze in place, like small animals thinking a lack of movement means the predator won’t see them. He’s only vaguely aware of everyone, and he means  _everyone_ , quietly snickering to themselves. They’re still trying to figure out how to approach each other—because it shouldn’t be awkward when they’re both adults and people break up after high school all the time—but Thea gets impatient and yanks on Felicity’s arm so she falls into the seat next to her.

“Oh, good, everyone’s here.” John claps his hands together satisfactorily as if that moment of crippling awkwardness hadn’t happened but does take the time to send him a chastising look for his usual tardiness. “First, I want to say thank you for taking the time to come. Second, I want to thank my lovely wife, Lyla, for tracking down my favorite people and forcing them all here tonight.” 

Everyone makes sounds of disapproval, meant to convey that no force was required, but John laughs it off. Quickly, Lyla calls for a cheers, and the melody of clinking glasses is overlaid by bright laughter. The table is too long for everyone’s glass to meet so Oliver makes sure to catch Felicity’s eye, raising an eyebrow and his glass to her specifically. She sends him a wry smile before returning the salute and sipping from her drink. Something about her expression makes his heart rate speed up, and he just knows she’s going to preoccupy his thoughts through the rest of John’s birthday dinner.

But that’s not new.

Surrounded by so many people who were witness to their young love, Felicity was bound to surface in his thoughts. She does every few months anyway, regardless of his best intentions. As he watches out of the corner of his eye, she smiles at Roy, one hand rising to nervously smooth over her neat updo. It’s a gesture he knows well, and he doesn’t bother to look away when she catches him staring. He won’t admit it to anyone else, but his best intentions are currently in a handbasket to hell.

 

* * *

 

The minute dinner is over, Oliver slips away to the bar. He can’t deal with any more knowing looks or Thea’s unsubtle throat clearing every few minutes, designed to cause him to look her way in concern. Felicity, pretty obviously to him, made sure her gaze was averted whenever that happened. On top of the already constricting feeling from his tie, he’s choking on the tension, and not even the occasional ocean breeze whenever someone opens the front door could clear his head. He needs scotch.

“Hey.”

Oliver would recognize her voice anywhere, even with the way it’s changed slightly over the past decade, and he quickly turns to make space. Felicity’s approached on his left so when she slides in next to him, it leaves her trapped on three sides: the wall behind her, the bar to her left, and him in front. Despite his efforts to maintain a safe distance, she doesn’t seem to notice or mind the unintentional cornering.

“Hi.” 

He tries to keep his voice normal, but it’s low, throaty, and undeniably  _happy_. Felicity picks up on it, as she always did, and shoots him a small smile. They’re quiet as the bartender pours her wine, and Oliver instructs him to add it to his tab. When she turns back to him, he senses more than sees how she rolls her eyes before taking a drink. He can only imagine the peanut gallery that’s gathered behind him in the minute they’ve been in each other’s space.

Oliver understands the fascination even though he doesn’t like it. They haven’t seen each other since he and Donna dropped her at the airport for her flight to Boston the summer after graduation. Donna moved to Las Vegas after, around the same time as their breakup, so his visits and subsequent return to Starling City have been disappointingly devoid of Felicity. In many ways, he can’t believe the girl who boarded that plane is the same woman before him now, somehow more beautiful and infinitely more confident and poised than her high school self would have predicted. He’s more than eager to find out what else about her has changed, but he doesn’t want an audience.

“You want to take a walk?”

Oliver figures he’ll have to wait on tenterhooks for her answer, like the very first time he asked her out, but she’s quick and decisive tonight. Unlike when he asked her to homecoming sophomore year, standing in front of her locker before first period, his fingers twitching and the clichéd red rose almost mangled by his fidgeting, as she gaped at him then asked him to repeat the question not just once but four times. Felicity sets her wine glass down, still full save that initial sip, and gestures for him to lead the way. With a whisper of a grin, he abandons his half-drunk scotch and heads for the front door. He couldn’t care less that the bartender still has his credit card or that their oldest and closest friends are staring holes into their backs.

 

* * *

 

“That was subtle,” Felicity comments when they make it outside onto the boardwalk that stretches along the marina. Her tone is light and teasing, predictably lifting his heart.

Oliver snorts in response. “When have I ever been subtle when it comes to you?” The question is rhetorical. They both know he wore his heart on his sleeve—or in his eyes according to Thea—during their high school romance. It was Felicity who had to be coerced out of her shell and into being as openly affectionate and adoring as he had been.

She tilts her head at him, ceding the point. “So what do you want to talk about? Or did you bring me out here to tell me I ruined your life, murder me, and dump my body in the bay?”

The disbelieving chuckle slips out of his mouth before he can stop it. “I could never hurt you, Felicity.”

Felicity stops in her tracks, and he pauses a step later, turning back to see the pinch of her eyebrows and a frown on her lips. “Too bad I can’t say the same.” Her tone is heavy with regret, and immediately he sinks back to that disastrous phone call.

“Hey, come on. We were 18 and dumb. What were the chances we would have worked out?” It’s easier than he anticipated to force levity into his voice. The time they spent together was truly some of the happiest days of his life, as sad as it is to admit that his relationships peaked in high school. Even though the months after they broke up were the roughest he’s ever had, he could never regret Felicity.

She’s still frowning, still blaming herself, because in her mind she’s the one who pulled the plug, of sorts. Two months into their freshman year at separate colleges, she was struggling to stay away from a guy in one of her classes. Whenever she talked about him, a rare occasion but enough to set his teeth on edge, Oliver recognized Cooper Seldon as her intellectual equal, or at least as close to one as she would find. When Felicity came clean about her possible attraction and unrelenting guilt, his insecurity took over, and he told her to fuck whoever she wanted because they were done. In truth, he’d been hanging on by a thread. Too many girls were enticed by his name and money and uncaring of his long-distance girlfriend, who he could barely remember during his drunken partying. In hindsight, that they broke up without any actual cheating was nothing short of a miracle.

“It wasn’t entirely your fault, you know,” Oliver shrugs uncomfortably, “I was struggling with the distance, too. I just never admitted it, and once you did, I used it as an excuse. It’s not like we ever had a conversation about it. I told you it was over and hung up.”

Felicity pulls an annoyed face, one that’s achingly familiar to him. “Yeah, I may have spent a lot of time cursing you out for that.”

“You never called back,” Oliver points out. He never thought it’d be that easy to shake Felicity Smoak. Hell, he spent the rest of the school year half-expecting her to materialize in his dorm, ready, willing, and able to ream out his undeserving ass. That’s also how long it took him to realize he’d really done it. He’d told the best thing in his life to fuck off, and she wised up and did it.

Instead of an eye roll, he receives a patented Smoak women look of disappointment. “You didn’t exactly give me a reason to. You were clearly done with the conversation, and I wasn’t going to beg you to take me back.”

“I would have begged you,” he admits. Confessing to his high school girlfriend how much he regrets their breakup wasn’t on his to-do list today, but his heart doesn’t seem to care. “So many times I nearly called you and begged you to take me back because I’d made a terrible mistake. I was jealous and insecure and _stupid_ , and it cost me the best person in my life.”

He falls silent as Felicity absorbs his confession, immediately shaking her head in denial once she’s processed. “You’re bonkers. It wasn’t a great breakup but it was a legitimate one. Even if we’d gotten back together, we would have been in the exact same place a few months later. Missing each other, unequipped and unable to do anything about it, and way too likely to make a giant mistake and cause some irreparable harm.”

“We shouldn’t dwell,” Felicity reaches for his hand, and he extends it to her, “I don’t regret you—us. The opposite really. I’d like to be friends again now that we’re adults and everything.”

 

* * *

 

“Or this.” She pants against his collarbone before unexpectedly leaning up to lick his Adam’s apple causing him to jolt against her. “This works, too. Who needs friendship?”

In the few minutes they’ve been aboard his sailboat, he’s gotten his hands under her skirt, and Felicity’s untucked his dress shirt, pulled his tie loose, and undone the top buttons at his collar. Her hands have always been faster than his, but he’s at least beaten her to the dubious accomplishment of sucking the first hickey. When she notices his preoccupation, she tugs sharply at his hair to pull him off her neck. He only shrugs in response to her disbelieving look. Old habits die hard, and it’s been too long since Felicity Smoak has worn Oliver Queen’s mark, or vice versa.

Felicity tilts up, nearly unbalancing herself in her heels, to nip at his bottom lip. “You are _so_ juvenile.” The teasing “insult” transports him back a decade, and Oliver grins at her. Using his grip on her ass, which has not faltered since he’s discovered the miracle that is adult Felicity’s ass, he hoists her up his body, knees dropping at the last second to avoid bashing her head into the low ceiling. She smacks her lips against his in an appreciative kiss that grows filthy as he walks them to the bed.

 

* * *

 

“You taste different.”

Tiredly, Felicity reaches a hand out to slap his shoulder. Since they’ve collapsed on opposite sides of the bed, she falls short by a few inches. She settles for muttering, “ _Rude_.” A few seconds later, she gathers enough strength to tack on, “See if I ever have sex with you again.”

“Hey!” That immediately sends him into high alert. Oliver turns onto his side to free a hand that he wraps around Felicity’s hip to drag her closer to him. She protests mildly at the movement, having never liked immediate cuddling since, in her words, “he turns into a freaking furnace after orgasm”. “You really wouldn’t have sex with me again?”

“What is this? The night after junior prom? That was incredible. Of course, we’re doing it again. You just need to keep any color commentary about how I _taste_ , or any parts that jiggle now but didn’t ten years ago, to yourself. Of course, you’ve just gotten more and more chiseled with time. So frakking unfair.”

Oliver can’t hide his grin at her annoyed grumbling. He didn’t mean it in a bad way, just as an observation, though, yeah, he can see how that’s offside. It’s not entirely his fault. She short-circuited his brain.

“I like how you taste _and_ your jiggly parts. And what if it’s complimentary commentary? Like your ass is more incredible than I remembered or could imagine, and your legs, and your face, and your skin—”

“Okay, stop it. You’ve redeemed yourself.” Felicity lays her palm on his chest as if to test his temperature. Humming in approval, she curls into his side with her ear over his heart in her—their—preferred position. “Seriously, though. That... happened.”

“I’m glad it did,” he responds immediately so she doesn’t have time to second guess him. Almost reflexively, his hand traces up and down her bicep, because he wasn’t lying when he said her skin feels incredible. They lie like that for a while, the only break in the silence their occasional content murmurings.

Abruptly, Felicity pushes off his chest, eyes panicked when they meet his. “Oh no, what time does the restaurant close? All my stuff is still there. I need my phone.” She springs from the bed, making a mad dash for their scattered clothing.

Her panic is contagious. Not because he’s worried their friends have charged everything to his tab, but because she’s in such a hurry to leave. Is this an excuse to ditch him? Does she need her phone because she’s supposed to be somewhere? Had she flown in special for John’s birthday? Where does she even live?

“Wait!” He snags her around the waist when she’s balancing on one foot to get her underwear back on. Since she’s so clearly unprepared for it, the end result is more of a tackle back onto the bed. “Calm down. If the restaurant’s closed, I’m sure one of the girls picked up your purse.” Honestly, he has no idea what time it is or when exactly they left for a “walk”.

“Right,” Felicity mutters in agreement, breathing out a sigh of relief from where she’s half-buried under his chest. “And my coat?”

“And your coat,” he confirms. If they’ve been gone for as long as it feels, Thea’s probably gathered their forgotten personal items and will hold them hostage until they’re officially back together. She’s never really forgiven him for losing Felicity. “Do you—” he pauses to adjust their position so he’s no longer squishing her then brushes the hair out of her eyes—”do you need your phone tonight? To check into a flight or something?”

“No.” She’s sheepish now that she realizes her reaction was a bit disproportionate. In a comforting gesture, Felicity raises her hands to scratch through the (new to her) scruff she’s already expressed her extreme appreciation for. “It’s just a minor addiction of sorts.”

“Don’t move.” His command is met with an eye roll, but he leaps off the bed anyway, reaching for his pants. “I’ll just run back to the restaurant really quick. You just stay there and... stay naked.”

Felicity looks completely amenable to his plan until a shiver wracks her body. Now that she’s above the covers and he’s not blanketed on top of her, the chill of being on a boat has set in. Oliver mutters under his breath before going through his duffel bag in the corner to retrieve a shirt for her. He uses a lot of willpower to button his pants instead of pushing them back off after she tugs the shirt on over her head, her hair emerging even wilder than they had made it.

“Did you know I was going to be there tonight?”

Oliver’s confused about why she suddenly sounds vulnerable and skeptical until he pieces the night together. The restaurant location, his suggestion to take a walk, happening to have the keys to the marina and sailboat, the onboard weekend bag. Put together, it all sounds like a scheme. Hastily, he shakes his head in denial. “No, I was planning on sleeping here and taking the boat out in the morning. It was all just a coincidence. A happy one. I didn’t even know you were back in Starling.”

She bites her lip, looking faintly guiltily, and his heart stutters to a stop.

“ _Are_ you back? Or are you just passing through?” Oliver has no idea what they’re doing—tonight, tomorrow, with each other—but the thought of her leaving again feels as gut-wrenching as it did ten years ago.

“No!” Her denial is quick, and she pushes to her knees to grab his hands. “I am back. _Permanently_. I just didn’t know how to tell you. Or if you would even care.”

He kisses her to convey the thoughts he can’t seem to articulate. Of course he cares. Of course he’s happy she’s back. Of course he’s not letting her off this boat until they figure out what they’re doing together and they’ve passed out from sex exhaustion at least twice.

Finally, they break apart for air, and Felicity falls back onto the bed with a happy sigh. From the look in her eyes, she knows exactly what she’s doing to him, but he forces himself towards the stairs and his dress shirt one of them threw that way. He needs to retrieve their phones before anyone assumes some ripped-from-the-headlines scenario where the high school ex is taken hostage.

Oliver only makes it to the deck before spotting a large paper bag sitting between the hatch and the side of the boat adjacent to the dock. Almost as if someone had tried to approach the opening then thought better of it and gave up halfway through. He grimaces at the note from John, along the lines of “you two owe me”, and just knows Felicity’s going to be mortified. Reaching further into the bag, he finds their abandoned belongings and a leftover container. Somehow, he gets the feeling that John didn’t have anything to do with the strawberries and whipped cream in the box or the champagne bottle wrapped in Felicity’s coat but he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He calls down to Felicity that their stuff’s been delivered and gathers the bounty. After slipping back below deck, he secures the hatch behind him. He’s not chancing another attempt at an interruption. Felicity is curled up in the center of the bed, covers cocooned around her and the collar of his shirt tugged up to her nose.

“Weirdo,” he chides even as he envies her. Readying the dessert and champagne isn’t half as appealing as surrounding himself with Felicity’s scent and never resurfacing. For her part, she merely lowers the collar to stick her tongue out at him then resumes her cozy position. He kneels on the bed, two champagne flutes in one hand and the unopened box of treats in the other. Felicity grumbles before leveraging herself up to relieve some of his burden. In response to her questioning look, he grins, “Presents. Courtesy of our friends without boundaries.”

“I’m not going to argue with boat-side delivery service,” she shrugs, “even when it’s super presumptuous and optimistic.”

Her words still him—so much so that he misses her lascivious grin when she opens the box of strawberries and whipped cream—because that’s what he’s being, too. Super presumptuous and optimistic that now that she’s back, she’ll want to try again with them. It’s a weird feeling since he’s assumed for years that she’d written him—them—off after his immature and unceremonious dumping. Even after he realized his healthiest and happiest relationship was with his high school sweetheart, his embarrassment over that incident has kept him from looking her up. He even avoided their mutual friends’ mentions of Felicity to the point that they finally did him a favor and stopped talking about her around him.

“What? What’s wrong?”

His fog breaks at the concern in her voice. He’s been so lost in thought, he hasn’t noticed Felicity smearing whipped cream on his abs and leaning in to lick it off. Well, parts of him definitely noticed, or else she’d probably be more insulted than worried.

No point dwelling on the past or the future when he’s got Felicity Smoak willing in his bed in the present. “Nothing,” he tries for a disarming grin at the same time he steals the box from her hand. Her champagne glass has disappeared so there’s nothing stopping her from setting her hands on her hips and fixing him with a “cut the bullshit” look. Oliver realizes he’s put himself at a disadvantage, champagne in one hand and dessert in the other, with no way of distracting her from using her Loud Voice.

“Tell me,” she demands, her Loud Voice having evolved into an authoritative tone he’s surprised to realize is a very effective turn on. When he’s silent, still trying to process the not unwelcome revelation, Felicity sighs, “Oliver, I don’t want to spend tonight trying to guess what’s going on in your head. I did enough of that during high school and the years after we broke up. So will you just tell me so we don’t have to repeat history?”

“You said you’re back for good but how long do you see—” he gestures in between them, champagne sloshing onto already ruined sheets— “ _this_ happening for?”

Doing him a favor, she takes the box to close and drop on the bed and the flute to set beside hers on the floor. When she raises from that sprawled position, he pounces, grabbing her waist and tossing her nearer the pillows before crawling on top. The flush in her cheeks is from more than the sudden movement if the way she shyly averts her gaze is any indication. 

Oliver mentally shackles his lust. She’s biting her lip in indecision and not to torture him, but the effect is all the same. Except he wants to have this conversation, wants to know where they stand and if he needs to shore up the walls around his heart before they continue the night. Because regardless of her long-term answer, he’s not giving her up for the short-term.

“I was thinking for as long as you’d have me,” she finally answers, somehow confident and unsure in the same breath. “I mean, as long as if we break up again, it’s a conversation and not a text message or the future equivalent because don’t think I’m not going to tease you about that douche-tastic move till the end of time...”

Felicity trails off at the dumb grin stretching across his face from ear to ear. For a moment, all they do is beam ecstatically at each other before he’s crowding into her space again, smiling lips pressing into smiling lips. “By the way,” his words are almost lost in her kiss, “we’re not breaking up again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hubble hubble hubble


End file.
